Project Summary:What text should be included in the main part of the logo?
NameGears.com - This could be all caps, all lower case, or mixed case.

What type of product or service do you offer?
This is a new website that will be initially rolled out in 3 stages:
1. Enable visitors to generate random names for role-playing games.
2. Display baby names and name combinations.
3. Business name generation.

How long have you been in business?
This is a new website.

What do you hope to accomplish with your new identity?
Encourage repeat site visitors.

What are your long term goals?
Later site improvements will be to suggest character first and last names for authors, and eventually generate names for additional business-like purposes.

When is the deadline for final entries before choosing a designer?
May 7

Audience Profile:Please describe your existing audience
For the role-playing piece, it’s primarily male with an age range between 17 and 35.
For the baby names piece, it would be women between the ages of 25 to 35.

Perception/Tone/Guidelines:What type of logo would you like?
A logo that is simple, professional, approachable, and with perhaps a little personality. Something with clean lines, one or two colors, and an attractive font like Helvetica Neue or Franklin Gothic for instance.

Do you have any colors in mind for your logo? (if so, why?)
A single color with grey would work, or two contrasting colors. Green, purple, blue, and orange have stuck in my mind. I don’t want all of those on one logo though! I like good contrast, like blue-orange, blue-yellow, or purple-orange – something artistically balanced. FedEx colors are attractive. You may have better ideas on this.

The template that I intend to build around the logo identity will be minimalist. See http://www.biblepilot.com/ for an example of what I mean by minimalist. That logo, by the way, was from Design Outpost.

Do you have any specific images or icons in mind that you would definitely like to see incorporated into your logo?
Gears or cogs. A few ideas would be to incorporate those into the lettering. For instance, the letters “a”, “e”, or “g” lend themselves to being turned into gears. Putting gears into the lettering is not required, as you may have better ideas for conveying this.

Communication Strategy:What attributes would you like your logo to reflect about your business?
That the site is easy to use, fast, and friendly.

What is your tagline or slogan?
None yet, but I’m open to suggestions.

What is the overall message you are trying to convey to your target audience?
If you need to generate a new name, or are looking for name ideas, try our website. Let us help you with the name generation process.

Where will your new logo be used?
On the namegears.com website.

Competitive Positioning:Who are your competitors and what do you think about their logos?
See competitive URLs below.

These are a small sample. Most I’ve seen are too much targeted toward their niche (fantasy or baby names), too generic, or too busy. The namegears.com site logo needs to be more professional, and capable of branding all of those needs.

What sets you apart from your competitors?
NameGears.com will be built as a multi-purpose site, to handle several name generation needs, not just needs for one niche.

Targeted Message:State a single-minded word or phrase that will appropriately describe your company:
New names made fast and easy.

Other:
I’m a big fan of negative space being used in logos. The logo for my site, BiblePilot.com, uses negative space effectively. I love the FedEx logos. The colors and typeface are clean, and they use negative space.

Clean lines, symmetry, and cleverness!

If time permits I’ll try to post some links to work done on Design Outpost that I like as well. Thanks!

Jeff, thanks for submitting. I just checked out your portfolio, and really like your work on USA Reels, Switch Marketing Group, and Odin Snowboards. It's elegant and clean.

The font choice on #3 is great. It's clean and friendly.

Putting the gear to the side is nice too. One of the reasons I loved using Design Outpost is you all have such great and different ideas.

One thing that I'm paying more attention to this time around is the mono-chrome version of the logos. In this mono-chrome version, the letter "N" in the gear gets lost. That may be just a spacing thing, where a little more space needs to be put between the letter and the top and bottom spokes.

I like the 12 spokes in the gear. Twelve is my favorite number. Though, it doesn't need to factor into this logo.

The ".com" is omitted in #3. That may be a good thing. If this were the year 2000, I'd say it needs to be in the logo. Note to all designers, you can put the .com in the logo, or leave it out. Just decide if it works with your design.

The color choice is good. I would like to see 2 or 3 alternate color variations of this logo, with grey used in place of PMS 3025.

Thank you for the detailed feedback, it really helps. I increased the spacing around the N so it's more pronounced. I also created custom lettering. I agree with you about the .com being unnecessary, and it rarely looks good from a design standpoint.

Just checking in quickly. Thanks for showing the color variations on post #5. Regarding the typeface change, I prefer the typeface from post #3 over post #5. The upper case G that lacks the inner horizontal line is pleasing. The gear from #5 looks better. I wonder if the N is needed in there. Maybe play around with some alternate ideas for that.

Nhr, thanks for posting. I like the colors. The #6 and #7 ideas have an odometer or slots feel to them.

The typeface on post #8 is nice. I like the idea of connecting an N and a G in the gears. It seems a little busy. And it will use a bit more vertical space on the web page than I'm shooting for. Space above the fold is premium; and thinking ahead, I'm keen to conserve it by going with a logo that has a more horizontal aspect.

Let me stress at the outset, that all of the work here is much better than I could do. I can program, but I'm no graphic designer. Thanks for all the submissions thus far!

Thanks NHR. The typeface in post #11 is nice. I'm not fond of the gear in posts #11 and #12. Thanks for trying the slab-serif in #12.

LutFi, thanks for posting. Putting letters over the gear is interesting. Looking at the mono-chrome version, the gear in #13 seems more complex than I would prefer. The gear in #14 looks more like a bottle cap. I'm not wild about the font. The color contrast and color choice is good.

I wonder if the logo would work with a partial gear behind the lettering. For instance, keep the lettering in a straight line, with a partial gear below the word "Name" and a partial gear above the word "Gears". Or stagger the words, so "Name" is above and "Gears" is below with partial gears or possibly a couple of cogs together. Or a gear above and below as if it's churning out the word namegears. An all lower-case treatment may present other ideas.

Does capital G or space inside a letter like "a" or "e" present an opportunity to present the teeth of a gear inside that space? It may malform the letter too much, but may work in a heavy font weight. The "eG" combination lends itself, in my mind, to creating a gear connection. Even partially rotate one or both of those letters.

Some typefaces that I like and use frequently include: Font Bureau's Titling Gothic, ITC New Baskerville, Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, and Franklin Gothic. I'm providing these, not to tell you what font must be used in the logo, but to give you an idea of some of the letter forms that I like.

Thanks LutFi and QuirkDesign. LutFi, I'm impressed with how quickly you were able to produce those logos.

Now that I see it, I don't think #16 works. Something about the weights seems wrong. Regarding #17, I guess that I'm not fond of that either. Both are something I suggested, but seeing it my gut tells me no.

QuirkDesign, yes thanks for bringing that to mind with something that will work as a favicon. Long term, I may create an iPhone app for this. That's way out into next year or later though. Still, something compact and brand-able could be used as an iPhone icon.

Regarding #18, at first glance the gear looks like an upside-down horseshoe. I see, that's a lower case N, but the impression got stuck there. I'm still digging #3 font with the #5 gear.

Thanks Djaka. #28 feels a bit heavy. I like the font and the colors. I like the idea of creating a brand-able graphic with the NG. This NG is too busy, and the monochrome version doesn't work for me. You did put a gear inside the letter G, which is a great idea.